The heat treatment or thermal process that may be performed for semiconductor substrates at high temperature has been used widely. The heat treatment process widely used in semiconductor manufacturing process is the rapid thermal process or rapid thermal annealing (which may be referred to hereinafter “RTP”). The purpose of the heat treatment process is intended to activate the implanted impurities by the re-crystallization of damaged substrate causing ion implantation.
The conventional apparatus is primarily intended to allow semiconductor substrates placed in the vacuum to be heated rapidly by heating means. In the example shown in FIG. 9, a substrate 23 may be placed on a susceptor 25 incorporating a heating means 24 and which is arranged in the chamber that can be evacuated (not shown), and may then be heated rapidly. Alternatively, the substrate 23 placed on the susceptor 25 may be heated by radio frequency inductive heating means, thermoelectron generator means for the electron impact heating, an infrared lamp used for the infrared lamp heating or the like which are not shown.
The conventional heat treatment processes described above are disclosed in Japanese patent application No. H10-144618, IPO bulletin WO97/13011, and Japanese patent No. 2912913, for example.